I know one thing the "Results Commission" won't produce …

Washington Monthly, July-August, 2005 by Charles Peters

The Bush administration plans to create two new commissions, the Sunset Commission and the Results Commission, that are designed, according to Charles Hunt of The Washington Times, "to evaluate all federal government agencies and eliminate those that did not perform as promised." I've always believed in the need for this kind of evaluation, but I hate to see it performed by the Bush gang. The same applies to another effort of the administration that I would ordinarily applaud--its attempt to make pay raises more dependent upon performance and less on seniority.

The problem is that what the Bushies regard as effective performance by an agency or an employee is likely to be quite different from what makes sense to many of the rest of us. For example, in the Bush team's eyes, the more a regulatory agency deregulates the better. And the White House's idea of an employee who deserves promotion is John Bolton. Employees of the Department of Homeland Security seem to share my concern. In a recent survey, they were asked if they believed that the Department's personnel decisions were based on merit. Only 20 percent answered yes.